Social anarchy in England

The London riots across the UK have left a majority of its population baffled. The riots kicked off as a result of the murder of a 29-year-old unarmed black youth, Mark Duggan, by British police. Mark was shot twice by the police and it was the bullet that hit him on the chest and penetrated into his heart that fatally wounded him. The recent riots are being labelled as “mindless violence” by the ruling British coalition as well as the corporate British media. However, the real cause of the riots demands to be dealt with in realistic terms and in depth.

The Tory and Lib-Dem coalition government in London places the blame on bad parenting, while others ascribe the riots to poor intelligence and policing and yet others pinpoint the gang culture that, supposedly, has turned some of London’s minority ethnic neighbourhoods into no-go areas. On the other hand, some of those who had been observing the 2008 sub-prime loan crisis, the Lehmann Brothers’ debacle and the Northern Rock fiasco lay the blame purely on the social and economic system of Britain. Talking to this writer, veteran democrat and ex-cabinet minister Tony Benn was of the opinion that Britain has become very divided, with a tiny minority at the top of society holding enormous wealth. Condemning the looting as a criminal act, he was insistent on probing into why so many young people felt so frustrated and hapless.

One sensible glance at the UK’s statistics regarding unemployment reveals that in the 32 boroughs of London, unemployment has been on the rise since 2008. According to the figures provided by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and reported on BBC News in May 2009, the official London unemployment rate rose from 6.9 percent in March 2008 to 8.2 percent in March 2009 — substantially higher than the national average of 7.1 percent.

Forty six percent of the labour force in London is under 35 years of age and the areas of highest unemployment are concentrated in the east end of inner London, with Tower Hamlets and Hackney each having rates of over 12 percent. The report further reveals that in Hackney, Haringey, Newham and Tower Hamlets, less than 60 percent of the working age population were employed in 2010.

Since the Tory Lib-Dem coalition government came to power in 2007, they have been trying to reduce the deficit by introducing draconian spending cuts. In 2009, David Cameron talked about creating a ‘big society’ in Britain that would empower people by organising them to be able to run post offices, libraries, transport services and even shape housing projects but, at the same time, he and his Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister announced that they would introduce 25 percent cuts to public services across Britain. This led many to wonder how a big society could be born out of deprivation and lack of public resources. How could communities run libraries when they were choked due to lack of funding? How would it be possible to run a transport system that faced privatisation? David Cameron told us that this concept would be a “big advance for people power”.

Contrary to his promises, Mr Cameron’s economic policies created a Britain in which unemployment became widespread. The economic growth that would have enabled Britain to provide the fundamental fiscal foundation for the big society drive was undermined by the coalition government’s quest to reduce the deficit. On June 22, 2011, while presenting the worst budget in years, Chancellor George Osborne claimed rightly that Britain was living beyond its means. But it was totally wrong and ideologically extreme of him to point the finger at jobs and public services. Instead, he should have looked at the many billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money that has been wasted on imperial campaigns such as the Iraq War and the so-called war on terror.

Since 9/11, the British government has spent in excess of $ 40 billion on the war on terror; money that could have been made available for job-led economic growth was wasted on bombing villages — killing, overwhelmingly, civilians — in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At home, the bankers have been taking enormous bonuses and kickbacks for their services to the banking sector, rendering the majority of the population financially broke. The hypocrisy and severe breach of ethics and moral conduct by the likes of media baron and defamed icon of transnational corporate monopoly capitalism Rupert Murdoch, who was responsible for hacking into people’s phones in order to obtain sensational private and personal information to make his papers more saleable — have shocked the British nation. People see all that, they see the cover-ups, and they think: “This is a gangster country. I will take what I want, too! Why not? If there is no law, then there is no law!”

Apart from announcing cuts, the Cameron-Clegg government also declared a three-fold increase in university tuition fees, raising them from £ 3,000 to £ 9,000, thus depriving low income families of the opportunity to send their kids to universities to get higher education and seek a better future. On November 10, 2010, hundreds of thousands of students took to the streets of London and peacefully demonstrated against the extortionist agenda of the Con-Dem government. The Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, Revolution, the Young Communist League, the Revolutionary Communist Group and Communist Students all sent their solidarity contingents to this demonstration. Even the National Pensioners’ Convention sent their representatives to the rally. On November 24, 30 and December 9, students protested again, this time by occupying government and university buildings. But, as with the Iraq war, their protests fell on deaf ears.

Correspondingly, when the anti-cuts and the right-to-work movements took out a 250,000 strong rally demanding a stop to the cuts, they were met with humiliation and sarcasm from the coalition government. The rally was addressed by TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber and Labour leader Ed Miliband. In return, crowds of demonstrators were kettled into corners by the police for long and very cold hours. Peaceful demonstrators were treated like cattle.

While addressing the media and during the parliamentary session, British Prime Minister David Cameron called Britain “a sick society”. That is a long way from being a ‘big society’. Mr Benn, however, differs from David Cameron. He considers Britain to be a society full of social and economic injustices and feels that unless Britain makes an effort to turn around its economic policy to help build an economy that promotes growth, there will be no hope. As the government still refuses to address the real cause of the grievances of the less fortunate, one must be reminded that ‘a riot is the voice of the unheard’.

The writer is a freelancer based in London. He also carries the portfolio of PPP UK Media Cell Coordinator. He can be reached at dr_amjad_mirza@hotmail.com